Dr. Weston talks about academia and mediocrity. for me it wasn’t even that. i started out like her, but then throughout grad school began to realize you can only aim for mediocrity because your boss is aiming for the creme de la creme and won’t let you get ahead. so i got passed along and spit out. But reading Dr. Weston’s piece i realize maybe i did the right thing turning away from academia?

let us delve a bit deeper then. what did graduate school teach me? that 99% of what you do is always going to fail, and 99% of grad students do fail. that saddles me with a infinitesimal amount of success. which i find to be based on luck and environmental factors based on luck. the choice of a good PI – luck, a project people are interested in (b/c you can’t work on something you enjoy)-luck, feasible animal model and viable KOs-luck, etc. with all these and more environmental factors that all come out lucky, then you get famous and like magic you are picked up and put down in text books.